


Anticipation

by Prochytes



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 16:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7722223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s more than one way to read a future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anticipation

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Dark Matter_ to 2x06. Originally posted on LJ in 2016.

  
Nyx has been looking forward to this. 

Of course, looking forward is what Nyx does. But familiarity often breeds contempt. For Nyx, the present is a gift that’s usually shop-worn. A joke, when you already know the punch-line. 

Speaking of punches... 

_Two closes again, not reckless, but fast. She’s a speed merchant. Jab hides the cross._

Nyx looks at that script, and doodles in the margin. Two closes again, not reckless, but fast. [Shift balance, ready for the counterpunch.] She’s a speed merchant. [This customer ain’t buying.] Jab hides the cross. [Slip the cross; counter-jab.]

Two grimaces as Nyx connects. The punch doesn’t land clean, as it would have done on most anyone else that Nyx has ever fought. Two was already moving out of range again when she took the blow.

And there’s the challenge – what gives Nyx’s jaded palate that little tingle. Nyx has time. Two has speed. Her opponent is so fast that Nyx’s margin, usually ample, dwindles to barely more than an edge. Two loads each groaning second to its limit. The weighted moments are heavy beneath Nyx’s fingers. It’s a rush. 

Two’s cheeks are flushed. She’s broken a sweat. Those are not the eyes of a woman who’s used to feeling it. Nyx can relate. The brawl in that cell had been a surprise to both of them.

Two isn’t toting CPA. That is not the nature of her gift. (Nyx counts down to the window for a kidney punch; she grins as Two gasps and very nearly staggers. Girl’s tough, but she isn’t made of iron.) Nyx has been using this bout to scope Two out, just as she is morally certain that Two has been doing with her. Nyx’s interim conclusion: Two is simply… too. A little too strong; a little too fast; a little too tough. Nyx likes to think that she is herself a walking testimony to how much badass can be packed into a smallish woman. But whoever packed Two was even better at folding.

Still, strength and speed are nothing without a future. Now and forever, the future belongs to Nyx. _Haymaker – ragged. Finally getting tired and desperate._ Nyx’s smile widens. 

Haymaker – ragged. Finally getting tired and desperate. Nyx’s hands blur into punishing body blows. Already committed to the combo, she receives the next delivery of future…

_Oh. Shit._

… and remembers, a fraction of a second too late, that Two’s uncanny athleticism does not come unaccompanied by smarts. 

There’s more than one way to read a future.

_**Haymaker – ragged. [Let Nyx see I’m] finally getting tired and [look] desperate. Nyx’s hands blur into punishing body blows. [Soak it… somehow. I can… I can take this. Just about. Hands free to grasp and…]** _

Nyx winces as the grip clamps down; her stance is wrecked; the moves crowd in. Her own strength is too eroded, now, to do anything much about it. The downside to combat CPA…

 _Knee slam. Push for distance. Front kick. Close. Uppercut._ [Got to rewrite this. Got to. But… groggy…]

Knee slam. Push for distance. Front kick. Close. Uppercut.

… is that you can have your ass kicked in stereo. 

Nyx slumps to the floor. Once the training room is considerate enough to stop with the spinning, she becomes aware that Two has sat down beside her.

“You O.K.?” she asks. 

“I’ll live.” Nyx manages, with some effort, to sit upright. “You’re more than pretty good.”

“Likewise.” Two gingerly prods her midriff. “I honestly thought that I was going to pass out, near the end there. But I had to plan a combo too long and elaborate….”

“…. for me to see. Four-dimensional rope-a-dope. I’m impressed.” Nyx raises her chin. “Don’t expect that to work in the rematch.”

“I’ll think of something.” Two looks away. “I adapt. That’s what I do.”

Nyx cocks her head on one side. After almost twenty minutes of feints and blocks, she gets the feeling that that’s the first time Two has genuinely left herself vulnerable. She’s kinda touched. And still more than a little punchy, but them’s the breaks. 

“Same time tomorrow?” she asks. 

“You’re the prophet.” Two smiles. “You tell me.”

FINIS


End file.
